From the Indianapolis Business Journal:
The clock is ticking on Fishers’ proposal to impose a 1-percent food-and-beverage tax to fund economic development in the fast-growing suburb.
State lawmakers agreed earlier this year to allow the town to collect the extra penny as it works to reinvent its uninspiring downtown, but officials must pull the trigger on the tax hike by Dec. 31.
Town Council President John Weingardt said it’s far from a done deal, even though local leaders asked the Legislature to authorize the move.
“It is important that we as a council step back and let the public tell us what they want,” he said. “We still have to represent our constituents.”
To that end, two public hearings are scheduled before the council’s December vote: Residents and business owners can share their thoughts Nov. 12 at a special meeting or Nov. 18 during a regular council confab. All correspondence and phone messages also will be shared with members.
Although raising taxes is rarely a popular idea, Fishers is embarking on an ambitious—and expensive—downtown redevelopment plan intended to spur commercial investment in the community.
The town turned over publicly owned land and agreed to pay for a parking garage at The Depot, a $42 million mixed-use project now being built along 116th Street, for example, and its redevelopment commission has been buying and bundling private property to make it more attractive to developers.
Officials also are working on several other projects expected to bring businesses (and their employees) to the town center, but no details have been made public during the talks.
“It’s a timing issue. These deals run at their own speed,” said Weingardt, who told IBJ in May that the tax-hike might be difficult to approve without “an economic development deal to hang it on.”
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See the full article here:
http://www.ibj.com/article?articleId=44501
